October 20, 2008

Sophomore forward Karin Volpe scored her seventh goal of the season and junior goalkeeper Briana Silvestri made nine saves as the Arizona State women's soccer team upset seventh-ranked and defending national champion USC 1-0 on Sunday afternoon.In addition to being it being the first Pac-10 win of the season for the Sun Devils (7-4-3, 1-2-0 Pac-10), it was also their first win against a top-10 opponent since 2001 when they defeated then-second-ranked Stanford 1-0 in double overtime. The win over USC (12-2-1, 2-1-1 Pac-10), which came into the match on an 11-game unbeaten streak, took on even more significance given the Sun Devils' current personnel situation. ASU came into the weekend having already lost six players for the season because of injuries. On Sunday they were without another key contributor, junior midfielder Carly Kallas, who was held out because of an injury she sustained in Friday's game against third-ranked UCLA."Amidst all that we have been through we found a way to pull out the win," said ASU head coach Kevin Boyd following the match. "I told the team we have had character all year long and that we needed to bring it out and play like a team and [stick to] our game plan the entire game and we did that."